What exactly are they 'wrong' about? They are making a prediction based on a lineup that has yet to play a game. They are not stating a fact. If you are taking their projection as the final say as to how the White Sox will perform this season then that's your fault, not theirs.

Their projections are nothing more than opinions using statistical evidence to reach their conclusion.

He said that they have been wrong in the past and he suspects they'll be wrong again this year. He didn't say that they are wrong about the 2013 season.

__________________"I have the ultimate respect for White Sox fans. They were as miserable as the Cubs and Red Sox fans ever were but always had the good decency to keep it to themselves. And when they finally won the World Series, they celebrated without annoying every other fan in the country." Jim Caple, ESPN (January 12, 2011)

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the (bleeding) obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." — George Orwell

He said that they have been wrong in the past and he suspects they'll be wrong again this year. He didn't say that they are wrong about the 2013 season.

They will be wrong. Everyone is always wrong. They will be correct on a few and miss on many. It is what happens every year. If you can get half the playoff teams correct at this moment, you are ahead of most people who get paid to project for a living.

Do you have a basis for this or are you just using two outlying sox seasons as your basis for their body of work?

Over the last 8 seasons (including every one of them--not just 2005 and 2008) Baseball Prospectus underestimates the Sox by an average of 7 wins. 8 seasons is a sizable chunk to be that wrong about, and 7 wins is, coincidentally, the difference between the 2012 projection of 78-84 and the actual record of 85-77. It took the Sox taking everyone by surprise last year and leading the division for most of the summer to even reach the average amount that BP is wrong by. The system does not take intangibles into account at all--as evidenced by the 82-80 projection the year after a 99-win championship season. Like clockwork, the Sox outpaced the 2006 projection by 8 games. You didn't have to look far to find other publications picking the Sox to win at least 90 games in 2006--that's because most other projections take such intangibles into account--and guess what? Intangibles apparently matter, because the majority was right that year, and BP was as wrong as ever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by doublem23

Well first off, anyone who understands Stats 101 knows that even good models turn out bad results from time to time.

My final argument is this: when numbers are blindly used as the only basis for prediction, the prediction will very often fail. Here's a simplistic analogy: If you roll a die 1000 times and take the average of all the values that come up, you will get something close to 3.5. Yet only an idiot would actually believe that this means that 3.5 was the most likely number to come up on the next roll, because he would be failing to account for other factors, such as the fact that 3.5 is not a number that appears on any side of a die. Similarly, someone who believes a 162-game baseball season can be reasonably predicted just by looking at numbers--and actually makes important decisions that are based on those projections--is just as big a fool.

Your fat argument seems to be based on nothing but your opinion of fat people. Plenty of fat people produce with no trouble. And Cabrera's "historic" season isn't really different from his last few. He's just that good. He's the best right handed hitter in baseball the last few years.

Not at all. Sabathia is by far the most successful contract ever given to a player with weight problems, but he's not the norm. Most players who are overweight and can't keep in shape in their mid 20s don't get in better shape as they age. There does tend to be a cliff for those guys because the extra wear and tear takes its toll. Cabera's triple crown season saw him best his previous career highs by 7 homers and 13 RBIs, while hitting 14 homers and collecting 24 more RBI than the year before. 2012 was by far the best season of his career. So, no, he wouldn't be likely to reproduce that season based on his career at this point and him being 30. Add in the fact of him being overweight and it doesn't portend any more triple crowns in the future. He will most likely put up great seasons the next 2-3 years at least, but I don't think he will come close to what he did last year. And even with his historic season, the Tigers barely made the playoffs. Also, as I touched on, Fielder is extremely overweight and his regression might have started last year.

Munchy, my point is that you take the worst possible outcome for the Sox (injury, regression, no improvement) and combine it with the Tigers' players staying injury free and either putting up the same numbers or improving.

you got it wrong buddy, nobody cares what you think or BP projections. Read the other posts . I never said numbers are for nerds or whatever, you need to learn how to read or something because I already said I am a sabermetrics fan. You sound like you have a dog in the fight or something.

Since you seem utterly clueless about what BP's PECOTA projections are I would say you are, at best, a fairweather sabremetrics fan and furthermore, I would counter that you can't truly be a fan of the sabremetrics movement in baseball and argue EDIT - CORRECTION against the relevance of BP. They are the gold standard of the industry. Again, I don't care if you don't like the stats game, plenty of people out there are good, knowledgeable baseball fans that don't like all the number crunching. I respect that immensely. But to say "I like sabremetrics" but then "I think BP is a worthless rag" is essentially saying you fundamentally believe in the teachings of modern science, physics, and evolution, but you also believe in a literal translation of Creationism. They are incompatible ideas. That doesn't mean you have to take BP at their word for being 100% accurate with everything they publish, but to say they have no value or worth automatically disqualifies you from sabremetrics.

Having taken graduate statistics courses up to, and including, Econometrics, I can safely say when it comes to public stat models like this, I'm in the Mark Twain School of Statistical interpretation.

I'm also highly unimpressed with the work of Nate Silver. My reasons were covered over at the PI board, but I'll leave it at saying his self-promotion skills are better than any other skill sets he has demonstrated.

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‎This just in from the newswires: The Anti-Trust Division of the US Department of Justice has announced that whenever Sale take The Bump, it is unfair competition in violation of various federal and state laws. However, he is not being prosecuted because it is so ****in awesome to watch him do his craft.

Not at all. Sabathia is by far the most successful contract ever given to a player with weight problems, but he's not the norm. Most players who are overweight and can't keep in shape in their mid 20s don't get in better shape as they age. There does tend to be a cliff for those guys because the extra wear and tear takes its toll. Cabera's triple crown season saw him best his previous career highs by 7 homers and 13 RBIs, while hitting 14 homers and collecting 24 more RBI than the year before. 2012 was by far the best season of his career. So, no, he wouldn't be likely to reproduce that season based on his career at this point and him being 30. Add in the fact of him being overweight and it doesn't portend any more triple crowns in the future. He will most likely put up great seasons the next 2-3 years at least, but I don't think he will come close to what he did last year. And even with his historic season, the Tigers barely made the playoffs. Also, as I touched on, Fielder is extremely overweight and his regression might have started last year.

Munchy, my point is that you take the worst possible outcome for the Sox (injury, regression, no improvement) and combine it with the Tigers' players staying injury free and either putting up the same numbers or improving.

Bring up more historical references to fat please. Because baseball has a 100 year history of fat asses playing well into their late 30's, starting with Babe Ruth.

Dismissing my points as "worst outcome" for us and not for them is completely 100% biased of you. You are making stuff up to create a scenario where two of the best players in all of baseball are going to suddenly fall off of a cliff while conversely ignoring the fact that it's more likely that we suffer multiple critical injuries than it is we don't suffer any. And we absolutely need to not suffer any if there's any chance of competing.

My final argument is this: when numbers are blindly used as the only basis for prediction, the prediction will very often fail. Here's a simplistic analogy: If you roll a die 1000 times and take the average of all the values that come up, you will get something close to 3.5. Yet only an idiot would actually believe that this means that 3.5 was the most likely number to come up on the next roll, because he would be failing to account for other factors, such as the fact that 3.5 is not a number that appears on any side of a die. Similarly, someone who believes a 162-game baseball season can be reasonably predicted just by looking at numbers--and actually makes important decisions that are based on those projections--is just as big a fool.

This is literally the single worst analogy I have ever read because A) only a complete and utter moron would base probablity on mean and not mode. Like, I cannot comprehend how stupid someone would have to be to make such an error and B) obviously a dice roll is the definition of a random event. Even if you rolled a 6 on a 6-sided dice 10,000 times in a roll the odds you'd roll a 6 on #10,001 is still 1/6. Comparing a weighted, statistical model (such as say... PECOTA) to a truly random event shows a real and fundamental lack of understanding of statistics and probability.

I'm also highly unimpressed with the work of Nate Silver. My reasons were covered over at the PI board, but I'll leave it at saying his self-promotion skills are better than any other skill sets he has demonstrated.

Ah yes, the thrilling work where you note that if you simply alter or ignore reality, his models no longer function. Brilliant!

This is literally the single worst analogy i have ever read because a) only a complete and utter moron would base probablity on mean and not mode. Like, i literally cannot comprehend how stupid someone would have to be to make such an error and b) obviously a dice roll is the definition of a random event. Even if you rolled a 6 on a 6-sided dice 10,000 times in a roll the odds you'd roll a 6 on #10,001 is still 1/6. Comparing a weighted, statistical model (such as say... Pecota) to a truly random event shows a real fundamental lack of understanding of statistics and probability.

Bring up more historical references to fat please. Because baseball has a 100 year history of fat asses playing well into their late 30's, starting with Babe Ruth.

Dismissing my points as "worst outcome" for us and not for them is completely 100% biased of you. You are making stuff up to create a scenario where two of the best players in all of baseball are going to suddenly fall off of a cliff while conversely ignoring the fact that it's more likely that we suffer multiple critical injuries than it is we don't suffer any. And we absolutely need to not suffer any if there's any chance of competing.

Babe Ruth in his prime was probably 100 pounds less than Prince Fielder now. Of course, he didn't have nearly the muscle Prince does, but he was three inches taller. Cecil Fielder was four inches taller than Prince, was in far better shape and he still put up his last decent season at age 32 before leaving the game at 34. Fernando Valenzuela, Bartolo Colon, Alex Fernandez and Bobby Jenks all spent a good amount of time on the DL with strained fat. In basketball, Shaq took 2-3 years of dominance away from his career by spending his prime 50 pounds overweight.

Look, I am not saying that Cabrera and Fielder are going to hit .200 after a Fear-and-Loathing-in-a-Las-Vegas-Seafood-Buffet binge fest, but the fact exists that they are overweight, they are putting extra strain on their bodies, and it could catch up to them via injury or a slow decline. Add in the fact that Cabrera has noted alcohol problems, and he could have a relapse which cost him time or causes him to slump.

I think this is what Cubs, Pirates, and Royals fans say to comfort themselves every year.

There are plenty of people who are going to watch the games because they, you know, LIKE watching baseball. Is watching baseball more enjoyable when your team is doing well? Of course. But I'm not going to be less interested or watch fewer games simply because BP tells me that my team is not going to have a good year. I realize that many fans enjoy the statistical analysis of the game and are distressed that BP seems to have under estimated (on a regular basis) how well their team is predicted to do. But if you're not going to show up to the ballpark simply because BP predicts a bad season for your team, then I've got no answer. I guess it's Reason/Excuse Number 795 why Sox fans don't come to the park -- BP predicted a lousy season. Can't we just see what happens before we give up on the 2013 season (and this is not directed at Kittle42 who I've quoted)?

BP is a great read, but their projections are just projections. The "we're doomed" crew will use it as proof the Sox suck. If the projection was for 95 wins, the optimists would use it as proof the Sox would be great. There will be a few teams they will be right on or really close with, and several teams they will be way off. Just go back over the years and check. It's not any reason to be more optimistic or more pessimistic, and it doesn't do anything to prove your stance on either side. Nothing is proven either way yet. MLB isn't the NBA where a chimp could name 90% of the playoff teams 2 months before the season starts. Too many things can happen.